President-elect Donald Trump has appointed Mark Uyeda, a Republican SEC commissioner, to temporarily take over the helm of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, replacing Gary Gensler who led the agency during the Biden-Harris administration.
The appointment comes immediately after Gensler stepped down as Wall Street’s top cop on Jan. 20, as expected, alongside President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Mark Uyeda Takes Interim Leadership Of SEC
Gary Gensler is now gone, a moment the crypto industry has long been waiting for. Hours after he was sworn into office, Trump tapped Mark Uyeda to hold down the fort as acting SEC boss until a permanent chair is confirmed.
Back in December, Trump nominated former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to run the SEC on a long-term basis. However, Atkins is yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
As an SEC commissioner, Uyeda has been a vocal critic of the agency’s “regulation through enforcement” approach under former chair Gensler. During an interview with Fox Business last October, he described the SEC’s treatment of digital assets as a “disaster” for the crypto industry. In December, Uyeda predicted eased cryptocurrency enforcement and greater clarity.
New Administration, New Crypto Approach?
Under Gensler’s regime, the SEC pursued several enforcement actions against high-profile crypto companies such as Ripple, Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken and also pushed a controversial crypto accounting policy.
It’s unclear what will happen to these pending cases under the new Trump government or interim chair Uyeda. As ZyCrypto reported previously, pro-crypto SEC commissioners plan to dismiss non-fraud enforcement cases.
Since being sworn in, Trump did not mention crypto on his first day as the 47th President of the United States. The omission of crypto-related actions disappointed fans who had anticipated Trump to create a presidential crypto council or announce plans for a national Bitcoin reserve. Nonetheless, the SEC is set to have a regulatory shift for crypto following Gensler’s exit.
